List of Maps, Figures, and Tables  ix

Acknowledgments  xi

Introduction  1

1. Constructing Vecinos, Constructing Indios: Complex Interdependence  17

2. Fragmented Communities: Class and Gender Hierarchies  51

3. Opposing Forces: Political Loyalty and Trade  92

4. Bandidos or Citizens? Everyday Forms of Resistance to Political and Legal Changes  129

5. Divorcées, Rancheros, and Peons: Changing Class and Gender Relations  176

6. Contested Citizenship: The Enduring Roles of Race and Class  222

Conclusion  275

Notes  287

Bibliography  333

Index  355

“Deeply researched and elegantly written, this book is a required purchase for any border studies collection. Summing Up: Essential.”— J. A. Stuntz, Choice

“Deeply researched and elegantly written, this book is a required purchase for any border studies collection. Summing Up: Essential.”— J. A. Stuntz, Choice

"A sweeping, path-breaking achievement, River of Hope will stand as a benchmark study of the borderlands for decades to come. It is a compelling political and social history of identity formations, community building, and overlapping conquests from the earliest Spanish colonial settlements to nineteenth-century Euro-American towns. Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez interrogates how the people who called las villas del norte home created meaning in their lives against a backdrop of state formation, disenfranchisement, and violence."—Vicki L. Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America

"River of Hope tells the complex story of how Spanish colonists settled Texas-Tamaulipas, how they became neglected Mexican citizens, and, ultimately, how they were transformed into unwanted American citizens as subjects of the United States. In this rich and nuanced work, Omar Valerio-Jiménez illuminates the struggles over land, identity, and love as native nations, Spain, Mexico, and the United States competed for this terrain."—Ramón A. Gutiérrez, coeditor of Mexicans in California: Transformations and Challenges

"River of Hope not only documents the history of the Rio Grande area in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but also provides a model for integrating the concerns of Chicana/o studies scholars, historians of the U.S. West, scholars of gender and ethnicity, theorists of state formation, and political scientists who study 'everyday forms of resistance.' An extraordinary contribution, the book opens up a wide-ranging discussion about the interplay between local and national discourses, particularly in places located on the peripheries of power and at times of rapid social, cultural, legal, and political change. This is genuinely original scholarship."—Susan Lee Johnson, author of Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush

"River of Hope tells the complex story of how Spanish colonists settled Texas-Tamaulipas, how they became neglected Mexican citizens, and ultimately, how they were transformed into unwanted American citizens as subjects of the United States. In this rich and nuanced work, Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez illuminates the struggles over land, identity, and love as native nations, Spain, Mexico, and the United States competed for this terrain."—Ramón A. Gutiérrez, coeditor of Mexicans in California: Transformations and Challenges

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